360

Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde is a play with a perfect cyclical structure, and it has already inspired one film masterpiece with Max Ophüls' seductively elegant 1950 version. Somehow, Peter Morgan's contemporary adaptation of this fluid material has turned it into a shapeless mess. 360 ties together a number of narrative strands from various corners of the globe, most of which are notable only for their banality.

Despite the starry cast (Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Anthony Hopkins), the characters never feel like anything other than pawns in a schematic game, whom director Fernando Meirelles attempts to link together in a typically flashy manner, with signs of his desperation becoming increasingly apparent (at one point he makes a toy airplane fly around Jamel Debbouze's head – heaven knows why). Some of the actors try harder than others – Ben Foster is sweaty and anxious as a reformed rapist, while Lucia Siposová is a consistently engaging presence – but there is little anyone can do to salvage such flaccid, purposeless and insultingly glib material. [Philip Concannon]